Oooooh, wasn’t it chilly this morning? A frost-scraper of a morning for those of you that drive, and a finger-freezer of a morning for those that travel by other means and forgot their gloves.

A little frosty-morning rhyme snuck into my head as I was walking to the station:

It’s frosty out this morning
I feel my fingers freeze
The birds are going bonkers
As they flit about the trees.

A little later, after a particularly violent sneeze, I amended it:

It’s frosty out this morning
So cold it makes me sneeze
The noisy nose explosion
Scares the birdies from the trees.

Or maybe it was a second verse?

Anyway, I was delighted when my pals on Facebook replied to my efforts with little rhymes of their own – isn’t it lovely how the Rhyming Bug can wiggle its way into other people heads, and make them rhyme too?

I had to share this one with you, penned by my friend Jon – it’s soooo sweet, and really made me smile!

The frost is on the branches,
The snowdrops and the rose,
We need to knit some tiny socks
To warm the birdies’ toes.

How cute is that?! So cute it prompted a wobbly little finger-doodle on my phone on the train once my fingers had thawed out:

A couple of weeks back my good friend Cat posted a picture of her lovely Bedlington terrior Millie with her new toy box, which rather resembles a piratey treasure chest. We bantered a bit about doggy-piratical things and she suggested I pen a rhyme on the subject…

Cut to today, and I had a little train commute so decided to do a Rhymey Challenge. After receiving only one word (thank you Susan Sharpe for supplying “bird”!), I thought “Hmmmm… Millie… Pirates…” and this is what popped out…

Millie and the bird…

Millie was a pirate,
She had a wooden paw;
But every time she tried to run
It skidded on the floor.

One day out on the foredeck
Millie sat alone and sighed;
Pirating was difficult
When all you did was slide.

She gave a mournful woof
And looked down sadly at her feet,
Then heard a little flutter
And a tiny cheerful tweet.

Something flew right past her nose
So quickly that it blurred;
Then there upon the rigging
Sat a tiny bright green bird.

“Hello!” it said, and fluttered down
To perch upon the floor,
“I have to say, I love the carving
On your wooden paw.”

Millie smiled quite sadly
And her big eyes went all drippy,
“Thank you bird,” she said,
“It’s just a shame that it’s so slippy.”

“Slippy?” said the little bird,
“Well maybe I can help,”
And Millie looked down at the bird
And gave a hopeful yelp.

The bird produced a rucksack
And pulled out a shiny box,
And after a short rummage
It held up a pair of socks.

“They’re made from special wool,” it said,
“It’s guaranteed to grip –
With one of these upon your paw
You’ll never, ever slip!”

Millie took the proffered sock
And put it on her paw,
Then stood up and began to run
Around the wooden floor.

Back and forth she scampered
And the bird looked on with pride –
No matter how fast Millie ran
Her paw refused to slide!

Millie is a pirate
And when her ship doth dock
People come from miles around
To see her non-slip sock.

And here’s the picture of Millie, in her posh socks, with her pirate’s trunk (no, she doesn’t really have a wooden paw!) – ain’t she cute?!

Thanks to Susan for joining in, to Cat for the idea and for letting me use her photo here, and to Millie for being Millie!

I spent a rather pleasant afternoon this weekend rootling through a box of my old school books we heaved down from the loft.

After chortling my way through numerous weird, wonderful and often just plain odd stories and poems, sighing nostalgically over little glimpses back into my childhood when we were asked to write about what we’d done at the weekend, or on holiday, and going extremely gooey over a letter to Father Christmas asking very politely for a blue Grecian Flyer bicycle* which ended with the words “My daddy would like a model train set”, I realised something rather sad.

All through primary and junior school, the books are full of stories, poems and rhymes. Learning to write and handwriting practice involved copying out little four-line rhymes; for each year there’s an excercise book called “Stories” or “News and Story“, and many of the entries are poems on a given subject; even History excerise books have stories in them, where we were tasked with writing a historical event from the point of view of the famous person concerned.

Then I start secondary school.

And in all my English books, there’s not a jot of rhyme.

Not a single poem.

There are occassional stories, but nothing rhymily creative from my own imagination.

I was rather shocked when I realised this. Writing – and in particular, writing poems and rhymes – was obviously something I’d loved at primary school, and something my teachers encouraged – but then when I got to Big School, the rhyming stopped.

Very, very sad.

So to cheer things up after that distressing bombshell, here’s a poem I wrote aged 9 for Hallowe’en, seeing as that time is upon us! In fact it was written on this very day, 29th October – exactly xx** years ago today!

Hallowe’en

This is the night of Hallowe’en,
When demons and witches can seen,
I’m in my room
I’m all alone
When from downstairs I hear a groan!

A tapping on the window pane,
And the moan, it comes again,
I close my eyes,
I fall asleep,
And the boys got tired doing trick or treat.

*I got the Grecian Flyer. And it was blue. It was the only brand new bike I ever had, and it was ace.

It was Children’s Book Week this week, and I’ve been posting recommendations of some of my favourites on Facebook. So I’d intended to do a blog post about the books I’d chosen to plug, but then I got distracted by a tweet from @QuercusKids asking what children’s book you’d take to a desert island…

Which got me thinking.

And I decided, “Peter Pan”.

Specifically, an old, battered edition of “Peter Pan & Wendy”, retold for little people by May Byron, with illustrations by Mabel Lucie Attwell.

And then the start of a rhyme popped into my head.

And here’s the finished thing…

Reading is such awful fun…

Once upon a tiny time
Books became good friends of mine;
I think the friendship first began
When daddy read me Peter Pan.

Every night he’d read some more,
Then place the book upon the floor;
And when he’d gone I’d take a peek
And try to make the letters speak.

Then (with a little help from mum,
Which was the most tremendous fun)
I learnt to read all by myself
And soon I’d read the whole bookshelf.

Encouraged by my mum and dad
(Who saw this was no passing fad)
I read whenever I was able
(But not when eating at the table).

I read and read, and read some more,
Read on the sofa, on the floor,
Reading curled up, snug in bed,
Reading standing on my head.

Books from libraries, old and new,
Books for Christmas, birthdays too
Bought with tokens from the shop,
I read them all, I couldn’t stop!

And now I’m all grown up (I’m told)
But not yet really, really old,
It’s still my very favourite thing
To grab a book and dive right in.

So calling readers, big and small –
Buy more books, and read them all!
Or join your local library
Then you can read more books for free!

Join a book club – start your own!
Or just read by yourself at home.
Read in bed, read on the train
Read in sunshine, read in rain!

In the bath, or by the sea,
Read on a bus, or up a tree!
And if your bag is full, don’t moan –
Download an eBook to your phone!

So really what I’m trying to say
(I tend to get carried away)
Is reading is such awful fun,
It should be done by everyone!